


&%@#* Good Pancakes

by Tobiroth



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alcohol, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 13:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3572144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobiroth/pseuds/Tobiroth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So long as there's someone else (just as miserable, or worse) to celebrate feeling like absolute garbage with, that walk isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be.  For the 'meet ugly' meme on tumblr: “We met each other on a Sunday morning, both doing our walk of shame.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	&%@#* Good Pancakes

The line stretched right out the door and curled along the side of the restaurant that best sheltered hungry customers from the wind.   _Best_ sheltered wasn’t even that great; this morning the icy wind whipped from nearly all directions.  It slithered under the neck of Cloud’s flimsy coat and pushed his bangs into his eyes.  He wanted to die. 

It was a small consolation that all the Lifestreamers and their families were still at church this early in the morning. The last thing Cloud needed were small children whining about breakfast.  He didn’t particularly care for the Goddess and her supposed gospel but figured that some of the frozen people in this line could use it, the others like him—the mildly hungover or maybe still a little high, the just-fucked, the ones who didn’t really know what part of the city they were in now that the sun was up but who really needed some  _Gaia-damned pancakes_ before they unleashed a limit break on someone.

Everyone seemed just as miserable as he, if not more so. All things considered Cloud was in better shape than he had been after some wild nights out; he still had his wallet and keys, and even if his coat was thin and did very little to protect from the wind he still had it and wasn’t just in his t-shirt.  It hid the hickeys on his neck, at any rate. Even if he was still a little lightheaded he was sure he had the presence of mind to order himself some food.

He’d sit, he’d eat, and he’d figure out how to get the fuck home.  It was fine.

Except it wasn’t, not really, because it was so damn  _cold_ and everyone else in the line was pissing him the hell off.  Behind Cloud was a woman on the phone yelling at her friend—“I can’t  _believe you!_ We all saw you kissing him in the bathroom!”—and in front of him was a man who was so unsteady on his feet looking at him was making Cloud woozier than he already was.

His hair was long, very, very long, and the wind kept making it smack into his face.  It stung, and Cloud could only move back so far before bumping into Ms. Phone. In five minutes the line only crept forward ten feet or so and he growled at the swaying man, irritated, “Excuse me!”

He didn’t turn around, so Cloud tapped his shoulder.  He slowly spun, and even that little bit of momentum seemed too much for him to handle. Reflexively Cloud reached out and steadied the man as he stumbled over his own feet.  He looked just as hindered by his hair, and clumsily pushed it out of his face so he could peer at Cloud.  

“Yes?” he asked.  His voice was deeper than Cloud had expected, and he was so much younger, too—it wasn’t often people his age had hair that color.  

Rather than bitching about the hair Cloud found himself asking, “Are you okay?”

Surrounded as they were by a number of people who were varying degrees of fucked-up, a few heads turned their way.  In the early hangover  hours all the strangers at nondescript pancake houses had to take care of each other. Everyone here understood that pain.

With a slow nod the man replied, “I’m fine.” He was still very much unbalanced and Cloud grabbed both his upper arms.  Long hours at the gym and on the job had made him sturdy and strong, even if he always would be a bit short—he held the man up easily.  He looked like hell, with dark circles under his eyes. Cloud frowned for a moment, surveying him.  His rudimentary examination hesitantly concluded that he wasn’t on anything, just very, very hungover.  The man squinted against the sun, and his eyes clenched shut completely when a particularly vicious gust of wind hit all of them.  Towards the end of the line someone let out a cry of misery.

When the man had regained his balance Cloud let go of him.  “Please don’t faint,” he said, a wry smile twitching at his lips.

“I’ll alert you if my blood pressure drops into dangerous levels,” the man responded.  “So you can move away in time.  Wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone.”

Snorting, Cloud stuck his hands into his armpits and hunched over his core, trying to stay warm.

The line crept forward.  People kept emerging from  _Highwind’s_ looking satisfied, warm and full (he was fairly sure that was the name—he’d seen the sign two blocks away and the  _Famous Pancake House_ underneath it and had been drawn to it like a moth to flame).  It got even worse the closer they got to the doors.  Seeing people huff on their hands and complain about the freezing temperatures outside was almost unbearable when you were still out in it.

The woman behind him eventually ended her call only to start another, this time with her mother—“It’s just that the home is really far away. No, I’m not avoiding visiting you!  Those attendants better be treating you right, I’m paying a shit ton to keep you there.”—and the man in front seemed to finally stop looking like he was standing on the deck of a boat in choppy waters.  He grew very still though and pressed a hand to his stomach. Not a good sign.  

He turned again after a few minutes and said hoarsely, “If I don’t get something in my stomach in the next ten minutes I am going to vomit.”

“The line’s moving faster now,” Cloud said encouragingly.  It didn’t actually look like it was, but they were close.  They were almost at the doors.  

The tall man continued to look miserable and somehow Cloud found himself rubbing the man’s back, underneath that waterfall of hair.  There was a couple clutching each other and shivering very dramatically a dozen feet back by a dark, disgusting puddle on the sidewalk so he certainly wasn’t being the touchiest.  The two small pills he’d taken the night previous in the street outside his usual club still had him slightly more tactile than usual anyway.  No one in line was in a condition to give even a single shit.  

“Thank you,” the man muttered to him.  His voice was nearly lost on the wind but Cloud managed to catch it.  He retracted his hand when they finally moved inside the doors.   _Highwind’s_ was completely packed. The small entranceway hardly had room to move, with so many people squeezed in to get out of the cold.  This neighborhood had seemed exceedingly barren, with blocks upon blocks of tall industrial buildings on one side of the main street and abandoned or hardly-used railroad on the other, surrounded by brown grass and browner dirt.  It must have been the only big breakfast place around.  

“It’s a goddamn madhouse!” shouted a man behind the counter, throwing up his hands.  There was no need to shout, really, and a few people were wincing at the volume.  “I fuckin’ love it!  But I’ll say it again—there is a _forty minute wait_ for all of you folks waitin’ on single tables.  Do we look like a café?”

“Fuck,” Cloud groaned.

The man in front looked panicked.  His hand was on his stomach again, and he looked around wildly for a moment.  He caught Cloud’s eye and loomed over him.  “Would you mind sitting with me?” he asked.  “I can’t wait forty minutes.”  

“No,” Cloud said instantly, “That’s genius.”

It took a few more minutes for them to have their shot, but then the blond man—Highwind himself, it seemed—barked, “Are any of you in a party of two or more!?”

The silver-haired man raised a hand and said firmly, “We are.”

They followed a teenage girl to their table, a cramped table in the back of the restaurant.  She seemed far too peppy for this early in the morning, and she beamed at them as they sat.  “Hi!” she chirped, “I’m Yuffie. Welcome to  _Highwind’s_!  You two having a good morning?”

“I’m very sorry,” Cloud’s companion said flatly, “But I need a glass of water immediately or I might pass out.”

She ran off to get it and Cloud couldn’t help but laugh into his shoulder.  

“That was the warning.”

“Noted.  Put your head on the table until she comes back.”

When Yuffie returned the man drained the entire glass right in front of the both of them.  While he was doing that Cloud ordered some juice and leafed through the menu. It was full of ridiculous menu items like  _Cid’s % &#! good homefries _and  _The Shera:  a %@* &! SPICY omelet with jalapeno peppers, ham, chilli, and a side of bacon.  Everything is smothered in our flaming hot chocobo sauce.  You’ll say, “#@$^&!!!”_

Most of the items were making Cloud feel queasy, so he settled on a tall stack of pancakes.  The man ordered the same when Yuffie came back, but she looked understandably wary.  

“What’s your name?” he  asked pleasantly as he read about the history of the restaurant on the back of the menu.

“Sephiroth.  And you?”

“Cloud.  Thanks for letting me come with you.”

“No, thank you.”

He seemed much more alive after the water, though he had snatched a tiny wrapped packet of saltine crackers off the table next to theirs that hadn’t been cleared away by bus staff yet.  The answer was obvious, but Cloud asked anyway, “Rough night?”  

“You have no idea.”  Sephiroth rubbed at one eye with his knuckle, but then finally considered Cloud.  He’d taken off  his coat to let the hickies go on full display.  His hair was a fucking wreck from the wind and the lack of showering this morning.  “Or maybe you do.”

“I can still smell colors a bit, so yeah.”

Sephiroth tilted his head, surprised, and then smiled gently.  “So I see.”

“Do you live around here?”

“No.  I, hm, spent the night at an apartment a few blocks away.”

“Same.  I honestly don’t know where the fuck I am.”

“Many buses pick up across the street,” Sephiroth answered, looking concerned, “I’ll help you get on the right one.”

“Thanks.”

Cloud rarely got along well with strangers, but it was like being drunk in a bathroom—everyone was the best of friends, and there was no judgment.  The blond man found himself leaning over the table, his arms folded on it even though his momma had always told him it was poor manners, and asked, “So what gives?”

“Hm?”

“Why are you here and so hungover on a Sunday morning?”

Sephiroth hesitated and Cloud pressed, “Come on. We’re both clearly doing the walk of shame thing.  Half the people here are.”

“You first.”

Cloud’s gaze slid away from the others’ and he frowned across the room.  What exactly  _had_ happened last night…? “Be right back,” he muttered, and stood—there was a college-aged girl in last night’s dress barefoot and picking her way across the room unsteadily with her heels in one hand and a huge, heavy glass of water in the other.  He gently grabbed the water from her and eased it down onto her table.  Her friend had dried tracks of mascara on her cheeks and they both thanked him earnestly for the help.

He waved away their thanks and returned to his seat.  This wasn’t quite a club, but he loved that moment when everyone was on the same page, on the same wavelength—where simple actions lost ulterior motives and just existed. “I got a cab from a club in Sector Five to this guy’s place a few blocks back that way,” he explained when he sat back down across from Sephiroth.  “It was late. I was pretty fucked, so I don’t remember much of it.  I dipped out as soon as I woke up this morning.”

He shrugged.  “Not that interesting.”

“That’s a fairly interesting night for most people.”

The arrival of their breakfast stalled the rest of that conversation.  They stopped talking at all in order to brandish their forks and knives like weapons. Cloud doused the whole thing in syrup, sliced into the stack and reached the Lifestream himself at the first bite. Sephiroth actually gave a tiny moan around his own, and then tore into his plate like an animal.  Cloud wasn’t much better.  The two men communicated only with the occasional grunt of satisfaction when Yuffie came by.  She seemed relieved to see Sephiroth stuffing his face and not lying on the carpet.

Eventually though Cloud’s stomach started to hurt so he slowed down.  Sephiroth completely cleared his plate while Cloud still had an entire pancake left and the man looked at the ceiling for a moment like he was thanking the Goddess personally for his meal.

“I’m coming from a friend’s house,” Sephiroth said after wiping his mouth with a napkin, like no time had passed at all. “I hate him.”

“Hmmh?”

“I hate him so much.”  Sephiroth’s brows drew together  as he stared at his empty plate.  He found a stray speck of bacon he’d missed and ate it.  “This happens every few months.  I should know better by now.  It always ends up the same—we get wasted, we fight, he says something that…shatters me, and I shatter him.  Then we fuck.”  

He was so frank about it.  Tired eyes lifted to Cloud’s.  

The blond swallowed.  “I’ve never had hatesex.  Is it good, at least?”

“The best,” Sephiroth said irritably.  “And I fucking  _hate_ him.  Genesis hates me.  But despite that, we are friends.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“It is.”

Sephiroth looked deflated, and Cloud said, rather uncomfortably, “Hey.  You’re here now.  Good food. It’s warm.”

The man seemed to appreciate Cloud’s awkward comfort and nodded.  Cloud ended up giving him the rest of his pancakes and Sephiroth ate a stranger’s food without squirming about germs.  He was a strange man, but Cloud liked him.  

“Where are you heading?”

“Sector 7.  Intersection of Red and Thirteenth.”

“Oh.  I live on Red as well.  A few blocks towards downtown, but we’re within a five minutes’ walk.  Would you like to accompany me?”

“Yes,” Cloud said emphatically, “I’m shitty with bus schedules.”

They tipped Yuffie extra for dealing with their shit and left the restaurant together.  The families were here now and Cloud was glad to be getting on his way. The windchill had not risen since entering the building, however, and Cloud was assaulted by the cold again as they left, though now somehow worse.

Their bus stop was across a bustling street, in the opposite direction of the derelict stretches of railroad.  There wasn’t anyone else waiting so the two men huddled together in small corner of the stop.  The clear plastic—possibly glass?—walls got rid of most of the wind but it was still so cold.  Sephiroth clapped Cloud’s trembling fingers between his hands, as he had fluffy gloves and a warm-looking peacoat.

“Are you sober?”

“Almost.”

“I see.”

Sephiroth seemed loads better.  His face no longer looked so gaunt, and his eyes were alert. He was very tall, very handsome now that he looked less like death, and very warm.  Of all the strangers Cloud had met during his morning-after adventures this stranger was his favorite.

“How much longer?” Cloud chattered.

“Four minutes, according to the app.”

The wait was excruciating, but the relief when the bus rolled up went through Cloud’s whole body.  His public transit card had money on it, thank Gaia. Sephiroth said he still felt vaguely queasy so he took the window seat and Cloud sat beside him.  

Neither of them had slept very well or for very long, obviously.  The last vestiges of Phoenix Down in Cloud’s bloodstream had him too jittery to sleep, however, so he asked his companion, “What are you going to do about your friend?”

“Genesis?”

“Him.”

Sephiroth scowled.  “I’m telling myself now that I won’t see him again, but I doubt my resolve will hold.  He’s…compelling.”

“Don’t you think you deserve to not be treated like shit from a friend?”

“You do not understand our relationship, nor me,” Sephiroth said icily, “Do not pretend to.”

That shut Cloud up, and for a few minutes the two sat in uncomfortable silence.

“I apologize,” Sephiroth sighed after a time, and bowed his head.  “You have been nothing but kind to me.  I got defensive.”  

“I pushed too far.  It’s fine.”

“It isn’t,” Sephiroth disagreed.  “I have no excuses for treating you poorly.  You are a good man, Cloud.”

Cloud snorted.  “Who on the first Saturday of every month gets so high at _Valentine_ he gets kicked out and sleeps with strangers, right.”

“That does not mean you are a bad person.”  

Cloud rolled his eyes.  His voice was full of self-loathing, “Right.”

“Deliberately saying the things you know will break your best friend just to get a reaction out of him…that would reflect on the state of your character, not enjoying yourself.  Strangers or no.”  Sephiroth sighed and rolled his neck.  “But other than the club scene.  What do you do?”

“I’m a mechanic,” Cloud answered, blinking. “You?”

“Bankruptcy lawyer.”

“Ugh.”

“Very much.”

They shared a quiet laugh.  The rumbling noises of the bus and Sephiroth’s warm presence finally soothed Cloud, and he tilted his head down, folding his arms. Sephiroth dozed against the window, uncaring of the large smear of hair grease there from whoever had sat there last.

Outside the bus Midgar was cold, windy and unloving. Between their seats however was a hastily-formed but still strong little pocket of safety.  Misery loved company, and company could certainly transform misery. In fact they both smiled at each other after climbing down the steps at their stop.  Sephiroth’s building was just across the street, and it was a fair cry nicer than Cloud’s.

“Would you like to come in?” Sephiroth asked. “I can make coffee.  In case you need to sober up some more.”

“That sounds great, but the only thing that’s going to help me is sleep.  I’m going to go pass out for a few hours.  I have the night shift at the garage.”  

“Oh.”  Sephiroth looked mildly disappointed, but nodded.  “I won’t keep you, then.  Thank you once more.  I am glad we found each other back there.”

“Me too.”  Cloud hesitated, too distracted by the look in Sephiroth’s eyes to even focus on the frigid air. “Would you want to exchange numbers?  I’m so close—we could raincheck that coffee.”

Sephiroth nodded.  “I will try my best to not be hungover.”

Cloud cracked a grin and typed Sephiroth’s number into his phone with frozen, fumbling fingers.  “Good luck with your friend,” he said as they parted at the crosswalk.  “I mean that.”

“Thank you, Cloud.  I’ll remember it.”

Cloud’s breath smelled like syrup but he was too tired to brush.  He peeled off his clothes that still smelled like that random guy’s apartment and collapsed on his bed.   

He had a text.  And then another.

_Did you get home without incident?  I realize now I probably should have walked you home, considering I am in a better condition._

_This is Sephiroth, by the way._

_Also, you are quite interesting, and very handsome.  I am sending this text befor I convince myself not to._

_Before.*  That was embarrassing._

Cloud laughed out loud.

_I got home fine.  Thanks for checking.  You’ve cemented our coffee date now – don’t forget.  How does next Sunday sound?  If it’s early again, I’ll make breakfast._


End file.
